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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24039094">Stripped (Down to the Bone)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpjools/pseuds/purpjools'>purpjools</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Human Hazbin Roommates AU [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Angst, Come Eating, Crossdressing, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings, Fights, Hurt, Introspection, Jealousy, Lipstick, M/M, Masturbation, Prostate Milking, Self-Reflection, Sex Positive Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Smut, Words as Artillery, no slut shaming</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:48:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,970</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24039094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpjools/pseuds/purpjools</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel is mercurial and demanding at the best of times, and a ticking time bomb at the worst.</p><p>Alastor is well-acquainted with jealousy, pride, avarice, what have you. The one concept he refuses to reconcile is lo-<i>affection</i>.</p><p>Therein lies the problem.</p><p>Powder, meet keg, meet match.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alastor &amp; Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Implied Husk/Niffty, Implied Past Angel Dust/Valentino</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Human Hazbin Roommates AU [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>270</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stripped (Down to the Bone)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is from the song “Stripped” by Shiny Toy Guns.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alastor languidly tongues his slit, lapping up any errant strands of come.</p><p>He’d milked Angel’s prostate earlier, fucking his hole with his fingers and pulling him off with the other hand. Laying on his stomach, Alastor had been content with rutting in the sheets, greedily raking his eyes over Angel’s body, naked except where his panties were, pulled halfway down his thighs. Those luscious thighs tensed as he came all over Alastor’s fingers and his own stomach.</p><p>The alluring portrait of Angel succumbing was irresistible, and Alastor brought his hand back down under his prone body to finish himself off. He came, gasping Angel’s name on his skin as he cleaned Angel with his tongue, scooping and tasting the salt-sweet-tangy spend.</p><p>Angel releases a small moue of reprove at his actions.</p><p>“Comin' in my sheets cancels that out, ya know.” He smiles, despite himself. “You’re doin’ the laundry later.”</p><p>Alastor chuckles. “I fail to see how that differs from any other day, dear.”</p><p>The subdued smile spreads across Angel’s face, like the last lights of sun breaking through clouds. He’s on his back, shoulders sinking into the mattress, arm thrown over his eyes. Alastor moves to frame his side while running idle fingers up his softening shaft.</p><p>He drapes a leg over Angel after he helps pull his panties down and completely off, aided only by Angel’s slackened muscles and a feeble bat of his foot. At this vantage point, he watches him, the quiet ebb and flow of his breathing to the way his hand blindly reaches out for Alastor. Any part of him.</p><p>Their mouths are both messily smudged with Angel’s lipstick, worn at Alastor’s request. He had painstakingly traced it over Angel’s lips himself, reveling in the spine-tingling sensation at the pursing and subsequent “smack” that followed. “Oh, dear heart,” he murmured, “We’ll dress you up for now, with just a smile.”</p><p>The fetching rose color isn’t just smudged all over their faces, it’s positively slathered all over Alastor’s cock. Yes, he thinks, catching hold of an errant thought while dancing fingers up Angel’s smooth chest, this is worth holding fast to.</p><p>Angel shifts, peeking out at Alastor from the shadow of his lifted arm. He blushes at the intense scrutiny but grins.</p><p>Alastor returns it, caught dead to rights, but as usual, uncaring.</p><p>He slithers his body up so their faces align. Alastor gently circles Angel’s wrist, bringing his arm down with his. He kisses Angel then, open-mouthed, slow, and sweet. Angel returns it, lazily probing his mouth before breaking away. Alastor smiles, then chases his lips, slotting them together again and earning a pleased hum from Angel.</p><p>He kisses him with reverence.</p><p>Alastor feels a swell of pride at coaxing such sweet sounds from him. It makes him dizzy and off-balanced. It’s not so much that he doesn’t care for the sensation. It just unsettles him, somehow.</p><p>It’s enough so that he breaks the kiss.</p><p>Angel doesn’t seem to have noticed, and a murmur passes his smudged lips. Alastor leans in, nudging his nose against his jaw, questioning, and burrows into his skin.</p><p>“Come again, dear?” He lets amusement color his voice at the double entendre.</p><p>Angel shifts to lay on his side. His heterochromatic eyes are bright with something akin to ecstasy.</p><p>“I love it when you kiss me. I fuckin’ <em>love </em>kissing you.”</p><p>Something in Alastor slams shut.</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>He turns and breaks away, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He starts gathering up his clothes, tugging them on.</p><p>He can feel the crushing weight of Angel’s gaze on his back, but he doesn’t bother to look.</p><p>He has a reasonable idea of what he would find if he does.</p><p>He has an even more reasonable idea of what he stands to lose.</p>
<hr/><p>“What’s wrong,” he sighs, threading the last undone button through the hole.</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>Alastor faces Angel at the sudden acrimony dripping from his voice. It’s a cold, dead expression that he wears, and Alastor is not in the mood for it.</p><p>“Anthony,” he says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “What’s wrong.”</p><p>“I told ya,” Angel snaps. “<em>You </em>should know what that means. That’s what everything is to you. Nothing.”</p><p>Alastor sighs again, straightening his collar. “You’re being melodramatic.”</p><p>“Don’t. Don’t fuckin’ tell me what ya think I’m feelin’, Al.” He starts dressing as well, yanking his shirt over his head.</p><p>“Well, then. Penny for your thoughts,” he says, voice turning more acerbic with each passing moment.</p><p>“I don’t fuckin’ get you, Al. Why don’t ya ever stay? What’s the big fuckin’ deal anymore? Husk already knows, cat’s been outta the bag for a while now.”</p><p>Finally dressed, (or as best as he could be, this was Angel, after all) he marches over to where Alastor had been leaning against the wall.</p><p>“I’m losin’ my fuckin’ mind.”</p><p>“<em>Quelle surprise</em>,” Alastor snipes, rolling his eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose.</p><p>“We’re not having this conversation,” he declares, stepping to the side. Angel boxes him in with his body.</p><p>“Oh, yes, we are,” he hisses.</p><p>This is how Alastor knows that Angel has never known proper warfare before. There are three main rules that Alastor lives by. One: Never agitate a predator. Two: It’s always safest to run. Three: A cornered beast will always strike.</p><p>It is with sheer will that he suffocates the homicidal rage that swells and crests inside him, in that dark place where the beast resides. It has never boded well for those that dared to challenge him. But this is Angel. He forces himself to breathe deeper, to quell the roar.</p><p>This is Angel. This is Angel, and he doesn’t know war.</p><p>He exhales.</p><p>Sometimes, it feels like it’s all Alastor knows.</p><p>“I don’t know what you could possibly want from me.”</p><p>Alastor inwardly curses as it leaves his lips. He’s worded it wrong. He means “what you could possibly want to <em>hear </em>from me” but now he’s done it. Pried open Pandora’s box. He’s noticed his extensive vocabulary slipping lately. He doesn’t want to dwell on why.</p><p>“Oh yes, you do. Al, what the fuck are we doin'?” The last part comes out like a plea.</p><p>“Enjoying each other’s company. Having fun.” It sounds pathetic and falls flatter, even to his ears.</p><p>“Fun? That’s it? And <em>bullshit</em>. Tell me, this fun right now?”</p><p>Alastor scoffs, and it does nothing but fan the flames. Angel bares his teeth.</p><p>“If it’s just that, then maybe I should stop goin’ in for the laser treatments altogether. Keep the fuckin’ tattoo the way it is.”</p><p>A part of Alastor utterly abhors the fact that anyone’s ever had Angel before him. It’s illogical and knee-jerk and driven by base emotions, but it’s true. He viciously stems the compulsion to scour every part of him so that every touch, save Alastor’s, is erased.</p><p>He’s met Valentino only once through mutual colleagues, and if he ever sees him again, it will be too soon. Or too late, depending on how one views it.</p><p>But right now, the focus of his ire is before him.</p><p><em>Three</em>. A cornered beast will always strike.</p><p>“Yes, maybe it’s better if you do. After all, I’m sure Valentino is dying to collar you again,” he snarls, vitriolic like venom.</p><p>“Shall I round up the papers to facilitate transfer of ownership?”</p><p>Stop, a voice whispers in his head. It sounds like his mother’s. But Alastor knows his tongue is silver, gilded, and sharp: created and honed for piercing, slicing, sawing. It’s gotten him this far, he thinks. Why change now?</p><p>There’s also a cruel, vindictive part that wants to cripple Angel for daring so much. He wants to show him how the emptiness feels when he’s not there, orbiting around Alastor. He vehemently wants Angel to experience exactly how that feels.</p><p>That incessant gaping. The ravenous yearning.</p><p>It’s never enough.</p><p>“Fuck you, Al. Ya know what? Maybe ya fuckin’ should. It’ll be a fuckin’ breath of fresh air, to be with someone who gives a fuck about me. Who doesn’t treat this as a type of game.”</p><p>He tries to force down the tide of anger to no avail. It’s a Sisyphean task, as always; his mind is too mired in fury right now. Alastor’s hold on his emotions is usually leash-tight, but Angel takes everything he’s ever known and turns it on its head. He has never met someone so contrarian and headstrong, who insists on not only just pushing Alastor’s buttons, but slamming a hand over all the keys and holding down.</p><p>“Don’t be-”</p><p>“What? Stupid? That’s whatchu was gonna say, right?”</p><p>The word he planned on saying was "daft" but a vicious part of him sees the open hurt on Angel’s face and he yearns to dig in his claws, to rip.</p><p>So he says nothing and lets Angel connect his own dots.</p><p>It’s effective.</p><p>As effective as a swipe to the jugular.</p><p>“Fuck off, Al! I may be a fuckin’ stripper, but I ain’t fuckin’ stupid!” Tears prick in the corners of his eyes now, where moments ago there was light. Something grabs ahold inside Alastor’s chest, in the deadened tissue underneath and to the left of his sternum, and squeezes. It’s an unpleasant and alarming sensation.</p><p>“Angel, if you recall, I didn’t say anything of the sort.”</p><p>“Ya sure as shit implied it.”</p><p>“No, I did not.”</p><p>This is going nowhere, Alastor thinks. He’s about to push himself off and break away from this mess when Angel pivots.</p><p>“Are ya scared?” Angel demands.</p><p>“I’m not <em>afraid</em>, no,” Alastor sneers, lying.</p><p>This much is true: Angel wears his heart on his sleeve; Alastor buries his under layers of scar tissue, gristle, viscera, and bone.</p><p>Then, in a timorous voice: “Is it me?”</p><p>Angel looks timid and unsettled all of a sudden. “Is it because I dance? Do shows? Is it because I’m like this?”</p><p>He gestures up and down his body. Alastor’s mind can’t help but fly to the negative.</p><p>“Of course not,” he assures him. “That’s nonsense. Whacky nonsense.”</p><p>It is. Alastor has no qualms about what Angel does for work. He’s possessive, yes, but when he’s not writhing under him, Angel’s his own man. He has no illusions about Angel’s work and refuses to demean him for it. It’s preposterous. Alastor’s known people with proclivities far worse, after all. Known and then unknown, he supposes. This trite barely scratches the surface, much less plunges into the depraved depths.</p><p>His assurance is not taken well.</p><p>“Don’t patronize me! Fuck!”</p><p>“Angel, I’m not patronizing you,” he says, but it’s barbed with so much poison, he doesn’t expect Angel to believe it.</p><p>Angel, ever mercurial, pivots again. Alastor has never felt this off-kilter with a partner ever in his life.</p><p>“What am I to you?”</p><p>And that’s just it, isn’t it.</p><p>His heart, laid bare.</p><p>Alastor doesn’t run. He’s never run away from a quarrel in his life. People tend to run from him. Alastor is prideful, selfish, greedy, gluttonous. To reference Milton, he’d sooner reign in hell than serve in heaven, and all he wants is to swallow Angel whole and drag him down with him.</p><p>An impossibility, he knows. Angel’s destined for the clouds.</p><p>“You’re,” he begins, then stops. He’s unused to having to grasp for the right (or wrong) words.</p><p>“Compelling,” he finishes, pathetically.</p><p>Angel’s face drops.</p><p>There’s a lone tear trailing from the corner of his right eye.</p><p>Alastor, for once in his life, has no idea what to do.</p><p>“Why even bother with me?” It’s plaintive and small.</p><p>Before he can stop himself, the words leave his mouth in a mad rush. It’s partially panic, it’s also survival instinct, but above all, it’s fear.</p><p>Abhorrence is dual nature to him, after all. Why should this situation be any different?</p><p>“Sheer, absolute boredom.”</p><p>It’s not the final nail in the coffin, but it’s dead close.</p><p>Angel’s face shutters, then closes.</p><p>“Fuck. You.”</p><p>It’s remarkably easy to respond back, fire with fire. This, he knows. This, he’s comfortable with.</p><p>“Nerve?” he whispers, derisive. He won’t help himself; it’s second skin at this point.</p><p>“Fuck you, Al. Just. Fuck you.” His lip quivers as he holds back tears. It’s a fruitless effort.</p><p>“Don’t fuckin’ follow me,” Angel spits, but his voice wavers, a hint of pleading perhaps, at the very end.</p><p>Alastor, in all his foolish fury, dimly registers it but the demon residing in him roars for total capitulation. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile, it hisses in his hindbrain.</p><p>He readies the coup de grâce.</p><p>He fires.</p><p>“Were I fool enough to, Angel. You don’t have to worry about that. Anymore.”</p><p>He witnesses the moment Angel’s heart shatters. He waits for the fleeting assurance of triumph, of <em>schadenfreude</em>.</p><p>There is none.</p><p>Angel spins around, but not before the dam bursts. Tears stream down his face, but he only allows Alastor a brief glimpse before he sprints out of the room.</p><p>The incessant droning of the air conditioner continues throughout, impervious to the situation. He hears it against the dull disharmony of his heartbeat, drumming loudly in his ears.</p><p>Alastor’s won.</p><p>He’s won.</p><p>But now the room is empty, and Angel has gone.</p><p>The beast inside him growls, circles, then whimpers.</p><p>His mouth is parched.</p><p>The victory, if one could call it that, tastes oddly pyrrhic.</p>
<hr/><p>After what seems to pass as a decade, Alastor manages to walk downstairs. His legs move on autopilot; it feels like he’s chasing after Angel’s ghost.</p><p>No, that’s wrong. Alastor doesn’t chase. He never has and doesn’t plan on changing now.</p><p>What a farcical notion.</p><p>The living room is awash in the deep afternoon, early evening twilight. The last remaining rays glimmer like fish scales, feebly dappling within the murky underwater blue. It’s like looking up from beneath, darkly, and seeing nothing but ripples.</p><p>Husk is sitting on the couch, drink in hand, bathed in crepuscular glow. He hasn’t bothered to switch on the lights.</p><p>This is Husk’s favorite time of day. Dusk.</p><p>Alastor prefers the bottomless depths of deep night, himself. He wonders if that says anything about the both of them.</p><p>Angel shines in mid-afternoon, so he figures it does.</p><p>“Where’s Angel?” Alastor is empty and his voice reflects that.</p><p>Husk sighs from the couch. “Took a ride-share thing to work. Said some shit ‘bout needing to get the hell out of this house asap.”</p><p>His ice cubes clink against the glass, the only sound for a while aside from their breathing. Finally, Alastor runs a hand through his hair, matching his roommate’s sigh.</p><p>“Ain’t none of my business, but you guys fight, or something?”</p><p><em>Fight</em>. No, Alastor thinks, that’s not the correct term.</p><p>He’s scooped out all his innards to carve out room for Angel, and now he’s gaping at the mess his absence left behind. He can’t stem the discordant feeling that creeps in from all corners, boxing him in, that reminds him of how bereft he was before Angel. How aimless.</p><p><em>Fight</em>. How erroneous.</p><p>No, more like Carthage, he thinks distantly.</p><p>Like Carthage, in ruins.</p><p>“Maybe,” he says instead.</p><p>It’s a funny word, “maybe”. Alastor is a wordsmith, capable of spinning tall tales to amuse his audience, but even he knows that sometimes the simplest words have the most impact. “Maybe” is neither one thing nor the other. “Maybe” is liminal. “Maybe” is both yes and no.</p><p>He’s starting to realize that Angel’s had enough of maybes.</p><p>And perhaps he has too.</p><p>“Look, Al. I don’t know much about that shit, but I know about death. Ain’t life hard enough? Shit, at this point I ain’t sure if what you’re doing is self-sabotage or-”</p><p>“Self-flagellation, more like.”</p><p>“Right. That.”</p><p>And, quietly:</p><p>“I dunno why ya can’t just let yourself be happy, for once.”</p><p>Alastor knows. Thing is, he holds too many secrets for love.</p><p>“Maybe there’s a way for ya to keep your pride and tell him to go unfuck himself, but if there is one, I don’t know shit,” Husk offers.</p><p>“I only just fucking got this second chance from Niffty and I don’t wanna screw this up, ya know? Ain’t nothing but the grace of god, and ya bet your ass I’m running with it.”</p><p>Alastor laughs, but it’s a hollow thing.</p><p>“Sage advice, Husker. I’ll keep that at the forefront.”</p><p>“This is a hole that ya buried yourself in, pal. I’m guessing the both of ya will just go back to ignoring each other like ya did before, until either he moves out or finds someone else.”</p><p>Alastor bristles at the prediction, the hot wave of jealousy surging up and cresting. He shoves it back down with minimal success. Husk hums in acknowledgement.</p><p>“Ya gotta ask yourself, Al. Is that okay with you? Can ya live with that? Can ya live without Angel?”</p><p>Without Angel: no hushed endearments mouthed on skin, no midnight-quiet moments of shelter, no safe harbor from the outside world, no earth-shattering, spinning, off-axis Angel to collide into.</p><p>And there’s the rub.</p><p>The answer is resoundingly apparent.</p><p>Maybe it’s just as simple as that.</p><p>No.</p><p>It <em>is </em>as simple as that.</p><p>He rushes to the door, snatching Angel’s keys from the ceramic bowl they rest in.</p><p>Husk calls out, “The fuck you going?”</p><p>Alastor doesn’t answer.</p><p>He’s out the door.</p>
<hr/><p>It’s practically déjà vu.</p><p>“Lemme guess,” she drawls. “Here to see Angel?”</p><p>“Yes,” he says shortly, brushing past her.</p><p>He stops before the red curtains for a moment. He runs a spear through every fundamental truth he’s known about himself.</p><p>Alastor doesn’t chase. He never has and doesn’t plan on changing now.</p><p>Didn’t.</p><p>He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He exhales, then opens them.</p><p>
  <em>Your weapons, lay them down.</em>
</p><p>He swallows his pride and walks inside.</p>
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